Link Roundup 2/25

What does it really mean to be donor-centered? How can your organization be more donor-centered? When it comes to creating your annual report, how can you create a publication that your donors will get excited about?

Communities in emerging economies must work collectively to extend public services until they can build out formal infrastructures. Today, one billion people live in informal urban settlements outside of city planning and regulation. This means one in seven people on this planet are spatially marginalized and less likely to lead healthy lives.

Emmanuel Letouzé, a PhD candidate at the University of California at Berkeley, United States, spoke at the Data and Accountability for the Post-2015 Development Framework conference hosted by the UN Development Programme in New York last month.

There are some educators out there that make classroom technology integration look easy. For most of us, it's a daunting task: converting your paper-and-folder, marker-and-poster classroom systems to mobile devices and the cloud. And the ones who dig right in, despite their reservations, to equip their students with the educational technology experiences they need for ...

What's a blog, really? A blog is just a super-charged, dynamic website that will bring you many more visitors - and a lot more engagement - than your website does now. Doesn't that sound like a tool that might help your fundraising? Did you know that 70% of visitors to the average website never visit [...]

17112001 Take a look at these 16 ventures changing the world through finance. Whether its investing in organic farmland, innovative entrepreneurs, or sustainable energy, these companies and organizations are using its funds to create a better or more sustainable world.

Long-time readers of Philanthropy News Digest may remember PND Talk, the message board we launched back in 2004 and maintained for the better part of a decade (until the launch of our new site in November).

The NonProfit Times - February 25, 2014Faced with a higher volume of grant requests, tighter giving budgets, and narrowed fields of interest, foundations are focusing on impact. "They want results," said Holly Thompson, contributing editor for The Grantsmanship Center in Los Angeles, "and in making funding decisions, they're assessing the potential return on investment (ROI) their grant dollars will produce."

" Ad.vo.ca.se " (pronounced advocacy) is a student-led initiative to showcase social enterprise in Singapore. They will be hosting a two-day event on March 1st and March 8th. "Vi.bran.se" (pronounced vibrancy) is an interactive exhibition that curates the work of 15 social enterprises, while "Li.te.ra.se" (pronounced literacy) is a 12-hour challenge held on the second Saturday where teams gather and come up with local social enterprise ideas.

The NonProfit Times - February 25, 2014Donor cultivation is a given in nonprofit fundraising, but in her book "Donor Cultivation and the Donor Lifecycle Map" Deborah Kaplan Polivy noted that even this basic element requires thought to avoid wasting resources or using them inappropriately.

Submitted by: Tsega Belachew on 02/11/14 Editor's Note: This article was written by Ashoka Venture and Fellowship Summer 2013 Associate Ayah Abo-Basha Social entrepreneurs, by their very nature, are system disrupters - they constantly challenge the status quo to mobilize innovative solutions that demand the reinvention of our market, legal, policy or citizen sector systems. However, the changes entrepreneurs promote are not always popular and they can find themselves targets of intimidation or other behavior that threatens their safety.

I frequently hear nowadays that our sector doesn't actually know if we're doing any good. This makes me really cross. There's something ridiculously patronising about the notion that day after day a bunch of charity sector workers and volunteers turn up to work with no idea at all if what they're doing is helping!

I love nonprofits. And I love social media. But nonprofits don't always "get" social media. While there are few truly firm rules about using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, or any of the other myriad of platforms out there, there are some things that bug donors.